Pedestal of Time
The Pedestal of Time is a magical pedestal of stone that is the holder of the Master Sword, the Blade of Evil's Bane, when it is not in use by the Hero of Time or his successors. The Pedestal of Time also serves as a lock that seals the portal leading to the fabled Sacred Realm that is located in the ancient Temple of Time where the Pedestal of Time and the Master Sword are both housed. Early History The Pedestal of Time was crafted to hold the mighty Blade of Evil's Bane, the Master Sword, when it was created by the Ancient Sages at Hyrule's creation. The mighty Temple of Time was then built around the Pedestal of Time, the Master Sword having been infused into it to seal the gateway between Hyrule and the Sacred Realm. The Pedestal and the Master Sword were both sealed within a private chamber, the Chamber of the Master Sword, by the magical Door of Time, a mighty stone door that could only be opened when the three Spiritual Stones were gathered and placed upon the altar in front of the Door and the Song of Time was played using the magical instrument known as the Ocarina of Time. For many ages, the Pedestal of Time and the Master Sword it held lay undisturbed behind the Door of Time, awaiting the time when the prophesized Hero of Time would come to claim the Master Sword as his own and take up his role in Hyrule's history. Imprisoning War Many ages after Hyrule's creation, a young boy from the forest named Link discovered a plot crafted by the Gerudo King of Thieves, Ganondorf Dragmire, to break into the legendary Sacred Realm and claim the all-powerful relic known as the Triforce, a relic that would grant the wishes of its holder's heart as long as he or she lived provided they mastered it in its entirety. After discovering that the Gerudo King had already attempted to rob Hyrule's races of the Spiritual Stones and meeting with Hyrule's Princess Zelda to discuss the Ocarina of Time's status, the boy worked to undo the curses Ganondorf had cast upon Hyrule's various races (the Kokiri, the Gorons, and the Zoras) and won the three Spiritual Stones as reward for his efforts. Soon afterward, Ganondorf attacked Hyrule Castle, murdering the King of Hyrule and attempting to steal the Ocarina of Time from Princess Zelda. Zelda managed to escape with her attendant, Impa, and threw the Ocarina of Time into Hyrule Castle Town's moat, meaning for Link to find it and use it to open the Door of Time. After a brief confrontation with the Gerudo King himself, Link took the Ocarina and the three stones into the heart of the Hyrulean capital, to the site of the Temple of Time, meaning to get to the Triforce first and protect it from Ganondorf's grasp. Placing the stones on the altar and playing the Song of Time (learned from Zelda in a telepathic message) on the Ocarina of Time, Link watched as the Door of Time slid open and granted him access to the chamber beyond it, the Chamber of the Master Sword that had laid undisturbed for so many ages. Link approached the Blade of Evil's Bane and placed his hands upon its handle. Pulling upward, the boy removed the sword from the Pedestal of Time, causing a massive rush of energy to issue forth around the Pedestal of Time's platorm as the seal between Hyrule and the Sacred Realm was finally broken. Link was then sealed away within the Temple of Light that served as the Temple of Time's counterpart in the Sacred Realm for seven years until he had aged enough to properly handle the Master Sword and claim the mantle of the Hero of Time. Ganondorf meanwhile followed the boy into the Temple of Time and accessed the Sacred Realm through the portal Link had opened near the Pedestal of Time. He laid his hands upon the sacred Triforce, but because his heart was not in balance, the relic split apart into its three components, leaving the newly minted King of Evil with only the Triforce of Power while the the Triforce of Wisdom and the Triforce of Courage were sent away to reside inside of Princess Zelda and the newly minted Hero of Time. This event, known in Hyrulean history as the Great Cataclysm, transformed the Sacred Realm into a twisted copy of Hyrule known as the Dark World and plunged Hyrule into darkness as Ganondorf (who took on his true inner form's appearance in the Dark World, that of the Dark Beast Ganon) returned to Hyrule and easily conquered it with the might of the Triforce of Power. Seven years later, the Hero of Time awoke in the Temple of Light and was tasked by Rauru, the Sage of Light, with awakening the other six of the legendary Seven Sages that resided in Hyrule to fight at his side and seal the King of Evil away in order to restore peace to the land of Hyrule. Rauru then returned Link to the site of the Pedestal of Time inside the Chamber of the Master Sword in the Temple of Time. From there, the Hero of Time began a long journey all around Hyrule, breaking curses Ganondorf had cast upon each of the five major temples throughout the land and awakening each respective Sage (each of which curiously was someone Link had known in his own past). Once Saria, Darunia, Princess Ruto, Impa, and Nabooru had all been awakened and their respective temples freed of Ganondorf's influence, Princess Zelda (who had been in hiding as the mysterious Sheik) revealed herself to the Hero of Time as the seventh Sage and Leader of the Sages in the Temple of Time. Ganondorf then kidnapped her and took her to his Throne Room at the top of Ganon's Tower, hoping to user her as bait to lure the Hero of Time there so he could steal both of the two Triforce pieces each of them held and reunite them to unleash the true power of the Triforce and claim it as his own. The Hero of Time braved the many trials of the tower and fought his way to the summit, where he found Zelda encased in a rose-colored crystal above a massive organ Ganondorf was playing. The King of Evil demanded that the Hero of Time surrender the Triforce of Courage to him, and a fierce battle ensued as the two archenemies faced off at the top of the tower. The Hero of Time triumphed over the King of Evil, and Zelda was released from her imprisonment. Ganondorf used his "last breath" to cause the tower to begin to collapse however, and the pair was forced to escape before the tower collapsed on top of them. After making it out just in time, the pair heard a deep rumbling from within the remains of Ganon's Tower, and the Hero of Time went to investigate, only to witness Ganondorf explode out of the rubble and use the Triforce of Power to transform him into the Dark Beast Ganon. The Hero of Time battled the evil beast and defeated it with the might of the Master Sword, buying the time needed for the Seven Sages to combine their powers and cast Ganondorf into the Dark World, sealing the Dark World in the process to lock the King of Evil away where he could do no further harm to Hyrule. Following the war's end, Zelda used the Ocarina of Time to send the Hero of Time back to his childhood to regain his lost seven years (creating a massive time paradox that split Hyrule's history into two branches), where he returned the Master Sword to the Pedestal of Time and closed the Door of Time once again. There the Master Sword remained until it would be needed to battle evil once again by those of the Hero's bloodline. Link then returned to Hyrule Castle to warn Zelda and her father, the King of Hyrule, of the coming Gerudo coup that Ganondorf was planning to lead, resulting in the attack's failure the second time around and Ganondorf's arrest for treason. Post-War History In the Child Timeline, the Pedestal of Time remained within the Temple of Time even as it began to fall into ruin in the wake of the failed repetition of Ganondorf's Attack on Hyrule Castle that likley left the Hyrulean captial damaged beyond repair and resulted in the rebuilding of the capital in a more central location a the heart of Hyrule Field. Much of the Temple of Time collapsed and was overgrown with botany over the course of a century, leaving only the Pedestal of Time, the Master Sword, and the Door of Time (all seemingly protected from wear by powerful magic) as the remaining relics of the former Temple of Time in what became the Sacred Grove. A century after the abandonment of the area by the mainstream population, a new Hero of the Hero of Time's bloodline came in search of the Master Sword to combat the Usurper King of Twilight, Zant, and his master, who was none other than Ganondorf himself, who had previously been sealed inside the Twilight Realm after his failed execution for his crimes at the end of the Imprisoning War. Following their defeat, the Pedestal of Time and the Master Sword still remained in the Sacred Grove at the heart of the Lost Woods when the Dark Wizard Agahnim usurped control of Hyrule and attempted to break the Dark World open to fully unleash Ganon once again. In the Adult Timeline, the Temple of Time eventually vanished as its counterpart had done in the Child Timeline, and the Pedestal of Time and the Master Sword were moved to a private chamber in the basement of the reconstructed Hyrule Castle in response. Ganondorf eventually escaped the Dark World after the seal on it weakened and broke, and he returned to Hyrule in a red wrath to conquer it. The Goddeses, after seeing there was no Hero to take the Master Sword, caused an event known as the Great Flood to occur which sealed Hyrule inside a magical air chamber beneath a vast ocean that came to be known as the Great Sea and froze all still inside Hyrule (mostly Ganondorf and his army) in time at the bottom of the sea, the Hylian people having escaped to Hyrule's mountaintops that became the Great Sea's islands. The Pedestal of Time and the Master Sword both became the lock and key for a seal that kept Hyrule in stasis at the bottom of the sea and kept Ganondorf's powers larely muted. A new Hero, the Hero of Winds (thought to be the Hero of Time reincarnated), then found his way to the bottom of the sea and rediscovered the Pedestal of Time and the Master Sword in Hyrule Castle's basement. Taking the sword in hand, the Hero reawakened Hyrule from its slumber and set out on a quest to defeat the Dark Lord Ganondorf, who had escaped the Goddess' seal on him and returned to the world above. Following an undersea battle with the Dark Lord that reunited the Triforce and left the Master Sword stuck in Ganondorf's head (turning him to stone), the ancient land of Hyrule was consumed by the waters above it, taking the Master Sword and the Pedestal of Time both with it. The Hero of Winds and Tetra, the new Princess Zelda and last of the royal bloodline, then set out to find and establish a new land that would be the next Hyrule. Category:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time